


Dog Tags

by Yaboybutternubs



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: Action, Blood and Gore, F/F, F/M, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Male Fujisaki Chihiro, Not a huge part of the story but it comes up at one point, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:55:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24835732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yaboybutternubs/pseuds/Yaboybutternubs
Summary: And then a big marine with a pair of friendly eyes appeared there at my shoulder and said "Wait! Charlie wants to tangle? Now he'll havetwothree to dodge!"Stranded in Towa city and facing impossible odds, Komaru and Touko make an unlikely ally. (deleted and reuploaded cause i fucked up the paragraph formatting D:)
Relationships: Fukawa Touko & Ikusaba Mukuro, Fukawa Touko/Naegi Komaru, Ikusaba Mukuro & Naegi Komaru, Ikusaba Mukuro/Naegi Makoto
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	Dog Tags

**Author's Note:**

> idk how some country song from the 70s inspired a danganronpa fanfic but i've been at this thing for like a month so w/e lets gooooooooooooo
> 
> also this is my first fanfic pls be nice ;-;

To say that Towa tower was a large building would fail to do justice to the awe-inspiring effect that the skyscraper had. It was a titanic construct, dwarfing the crudely repainted structures around it with ease. Its bizarre spiral shape only further enforced the foreboding aura that the structure gave off with its size. Under normal circumstances, Towa tower would have inspired a much more positive form of awe. However, as the twisted killing game Komaru was forced in to had taken its toll on her and her newfound companion, the gargantuan shadow of the skyscraper only served to further drag them into the depths of despair. What little hope they had left after the half-hearted ambush lead by the eccentric masked child known as Jataro was rapidly diminished as the realization dawned on the pair of high schoolers that they would inevitably have to reach the peak of this man-made mountain if they were to ever have any hope of escape from this nightmare of a city.

“I-It’s so huge! It’s like… I’m being looked down upon.” Touko mumbled as she bit her fingernails and blushed slightly. “M-makes me feel all tingly…”

Komaru couldn’t help but sigh at the writer’s needlessly suggestive interjections. “You really are a special one.” She said as she wondered just how thin the line was between Touko and the perverted serial killer she seemed to share her mind with.

Entering the building did little to assuage their anxieties as they laid their eyes upon what the rampaging children had done to the inside of this once thriving tourist attraction. Touko averted her gaze and bit her nails harder than before as Komaru could do little but stare on in horror at the various dioramas that had been made out of the bodies of any adults unfortunate enough to be caught in the path of the legions of automatons the children commanded. A decorative fountain near the elevator in the center of the room seemed to be the focus of the children who had taken to amusing themselves with the dead bodies. One small boy seemed to be able to extract endless entertainment from taking the armless body of a man and placing it in obscene positions on top of a dead woman whose jaw hung to her skull by a single tendon. Despite the scene in front of her, Komaru managed to focus on the fountain itself, its waters tinged crimson with blood, and wonder what this attraction must have been like before such an awful tragedy occurred.

Unfortunately, these musings were ultimately a futile attempt at distracting herself from her newest predicament. As if the city’s signature tower hadn’t been intimidating enough, Komaru further cursed the damned structure’s height as she realized that the elevator’s lock meant that she and Touko would now be forced to either climb the tower stair by excruciating stair, or-

“I-if you’re worried, w-we could always just turn around and go back to the sewers.” Touko suggested far too eagerly.

“No way!” Komaru shouted, her vitality returning to her as she realized what turning around here would mean. “I can’t give up! I have to see my parents and Makoto!” Now that she was finally free of that prison of an apartment complex, she promised herself no force on earth would stop her from seeing her family again.

As they approach the first flight of stairs, her monologue of righteous indignation was soon brought to a halt by a series of crashing noises coming from the balconies above them. A spherical monokuma tumbled down the staircase with the intent of pulverizing them. It would have succeeded, had Touko's reaction time been insufficient for pulling a shocked and confused Komaru out of its path. The poor girl was only snapped out of her exhaustion-induced trance by the deafening noise of the ball monokuma ramming into the wall behind them. Komaru attempted to raise her weapon to fight back but her attention was taken away from the ball monokuma as more of them turned the corner of the first floor and ran toward the staircase. Their new assailants cackled maniacally and as they rambled about punishments and despair. Whatever hope Komaru had of defeating the robotic hordes was quickly extinguished as she heard Touko hurling expletives from behind her, and she realized that they couldn't rely on the stun gun to save them.

There were far too many of them. The duo worked their way up the stairs as Komaru fired blindly at any of the robotic creatures that came too close and Touko attempted to force her dead stun gun to work. As the two highschoolers were pushed against the wall by the advance of their adversaries, the monokumas began to voice taunts of all kinds in their mechanical voices. Though Touko's continuous stream of insults directed at the mechanical legion indicated she still had some sort of fighting spirit left in her, her companion had given up entirely. Komaru's knees had given in, and she was sprawled helplessly on the floor. She was going to die. She was going to die for reasons she couldn't begin to understand in a city warped beyond recognition. Her mind fell further into the depths of despair as she realized she would never learn what had happened to her family and friends. They most likely wouldn't even know she died here.

For some reason, the room became incredibly hot.

The poor girls’ thoughts of her impending doom were shattered like glass at the sound of a three round burst from a rifle came from the bottom of the stairs.

Komaru opened her eyes.

The ball monokuma lay motionless at her feet with three holes in its back emitting a trail of smoke.

She began to stand up.

Two more three round bursts went off as the monokumas turned around to face the interloper.

By the time Komaru had worked her way onto her feet their former attackers had worked their way to the ground floor, and the gunfire had turned into a continuous stream of deafening noise. When Komaru finally regained enough of her faculties to understand what was happening around her, she and Touko both could do little more than stare in awe at the sight of their savior.

While simply blindly charging at any adults in sight and rending them with claws and jaws may have been a successful strategy thus far, the interloper was thoroughly demonstrating such tactics would no longer suffice. The gunfire continued as the interloper simply mowed down the horde of mechanical bears. One of the monokumas comes close, they resign themselves to holding their rifle with one hand as they drive a combat knife taken from a pouch near their shoulder into its red eye, causing it to go limp. Another crawls along the ground, intending to swipe at their legs. As the interloper draws their knife from the previous monokuma, they jump in place, causing the next to land where they previously stood. When they land, they angle the rifle down to fire at the helpless automaton beneath their feet. Another pounce, another three round burst. Another swipe of the claws fails to connect with the flesh, another stroke with the combat knife rends through steel and wire. This process repeated itself for what felt like an eternity, until the interloper was left standing atop a pile of defunct monokumas.

Komaru can hardly remember to breath at the sight of her savior.

* * *

"S-Seriously!? You come out of nowhere like s-some kind of western action movie star, and n-now you won't even tell us your name!?"

"Come on, Touko, she's done enough for us already..."

Clearly the interloper's superhuman prowess did not extend into the realm of social activity.

The interloper's adamant refusal to give her name meant that closest thing that Komaru and Touko had to a clue as to the interloper's identity was her distinctly feminine voice. It was surprisingly soft and low, yet had a gravelly undertone to it, as if the speaker was pained with every word. The only times she spoke were to give frustratingly brief warnings of imminent danger, or to dismiss any attempts at conversation with some minor variation upon a single answer.

"I told you already," She interjected, her voice filled with equal parts hesitation and annoyance as though she was informing the girls of some sort of secret they weren't supposed to know. "You don't need to know who I am. All that matters is that I undo the damage I've done."

"There you go again about 'sins' and 'atonement' or whatever. Are you trying to sound like some edgy anime character who dies at the end?" Touko shouts, her signature verbose insults having little effect on the interloper. Yet another bout of silence befalls the trio as they continue their ascent through the tower. Komaru picked up her pace slightly to match the interloper ( _How is she able to move so fast with all of that heavy combat gear on?_ ) and put her hand on her shoulder. If this got a reaction out of the mysterious girl, it was obscured by her rigid demeanor.

"Sorry about my partner, she's just a little on edge right now." Komaru shifted her gaze downward as she continued her one-sided conversation. "To be honest, I don't blame her. Nothing about this city makes sense, you know? I mean,-"

Two rounds discharge from the interloper's sidearm into a monokuma that had yet to even look up at them from a corpse it appeared preoccupied with mangling. The other two girls glare at her in annoyance simultaneously as they cover their ears to ease the pain of the noise.

The trio's footsteps once again became the only sound in the tower.

"So..." Komaru decided once more to throw herself unto the breach that was attempting to make conversation with the new girl. "How did you get here? Were you in one of those 'apartment' prisons like me?"

This question must have gotten the interloper's attention, judging from how it caused her to stop dead in her tracks. For a brief moment she was completely still, as though she were in contemplation. Without warning, she grabbed Komaru's right hand, causing her to yelp in suprise as she almost drops the hacking gun given to her by the future foundation. The interloper ignored whatever signs of pain Komaru let out as her gaze focused on the poor girl's wrist. Her icy blue eyes were transfixed by the armband placed on Komaru by the warriors of hope. After a period of time that Komaru would have sworn was an eternity, the interloper finally let her go.

"I knew you looked **familiar**." The interloper said as she opened a door to a poorly lit room filled with anchors, life preservers, and other nautical-themed objects. Whether this was some kind of storage room or bizarre tourist attraction, Komaru could only guess.

"Really? That's all you h-have to say after manhandling someone like that?" Touko spouted as she picked up her pace to match the other two girls. "You don't just grab my girlfriend like that and-"

The interloper raised her fist into the air to signal the other two to be silent.

"H-Huh? What are you doing?" Komaru yelped in confusion.

Unfortunately, these two highschoolers had little in the way of experience with hand signals used in combat.

Before Komaru could receive the answer to her question, one of the children donned in a monokuma helmet came out of the door on the other side of the room. The child took a poorly scribbled note out of his pocket and handed it to Komaru as he giggled to himself about punishment and demons. After a brief period of unfolding it and smoothing out the wrinkles so as to make it legible, Komaru read it out loud. Her attempt to read the note was interrupted by the sound of the doors to the room locking.

"G-Go on," The unwashed author urged her. "We have to solve this stupid puzzle if we wanna get out, so let’s just get this over with!"

"R-Right, sorry..." Komaru cleared her throat. "Challenge! There is only one-"

"We don't have time for this."

Without warning, the interloper fired her rifle continuously, causing the other two girls to crouch down and cover their ears in a mixture of surprise and pain. Despite what the ringing in Komaru's ears would have had her believe, the room was silent for a brief moment after that. That moment ended all too soon as the duo were brought back to reality by the sound of the exit door to the room crashing to the ground, its hinges ripped to shreds by the interloper's automatic gunfire.

"Geez, can you please stop doing that!?" Komaru pleaded as she rubbed her head.

The interloper responded with her usual level of bluntness. "I told you, there's no time waste." She pauses and turns away from them to face forward. "I have to save everyone," She looks back at Komaru. "It's what **he** would want."

“ _Does this woman ever answer any of the questions she raises in every time she speaks?_ ” Komaru couldn't help but wonder.

"What? Who's-"

Komaru interrupted the author as stars shone in her eyes. "Don't you know anything about foreshadowing? It's obvious she's not gonna tell us who she's talking about so it can be a dramatic reveal later!" While it was a given that Komaru was comparing the interloper to some manga character in an attempt to process this otherworldly series of events, she did carry a genuine admiration for the interloper.

She rubbed her chin pensively. "I wish she could just tell us what's going on..."

"Yeah! Exactly!" Touko agreed with an uncharacteristic enthusiasm in her voice. "I just wish master Byakuya would teach people like her a lesson." The literary prodigy paused briefly to consider her thoughts, and her face turned red and a smile grew on her face as a realization dawned on her.

"N-No, wait! I want master Byakuya to teach _me_ that lesson instead!"

Doing her best to ignore Touko's uncontrollable lust, Komaru turned her thoughts to the task ahead. "So, it can't be that long until we reach the top, right?" She asked, already prepared for her optimism to be crushed before her question even had a chance to receive the answer she so utterly dreaded.

"We're only on the third floor. We need to move faster." The interloper responded as she beckoned with her free hand for the other two girls to move faster.

As they approached the staircase to the fourth floor, Komaru perked up slightly at what she thought was the sound of a person on the upper half of the stairwell. The interloper once again raised a balled fist into the air to signal them to be quiet, and this time, Komaru had the sense to obey her unspoken command. Touko, however, seemed to take these orders as a personal attack.

"What makes you think you can just order us around like we're dogs!? I bet you've never had a boyfrien-"

The interloper stared at Touko for but an instant, and she completely capitulated under the seemingly lethal gaze of her icy blue eyes. If the author had noticed that the interloper was blushing, seemingly out of embarrassment, then she was too petrified to make one of her signature cutting insults. Touko muttered a promise of revenge to herself as the interloper advanced up the stairs, her rifle at the ready. She turned the corner towards the upper half of the stairwell and out of the sights of Komaru and Touko. The former is filled with dread after having lost sight of her new savior. Not for the interloper's safety, of course, but for her own. Fortunately, she had little time to dwell on these thoughts as the startled shouts of a meek looking middle aged man pulled her back into reality. His chestnut hair was mangled with dirt and sweat, and his clothes were torn in parts where he'd evidently received minor cuts on his skin. The man's eyes were a similar color to his hair, though that was hardly noticeable through the crimson tinge of his eyes being bloodshot from lack of sleep and overexposure to the lights of electronic screens.

"W-Whoa! Don't shoot! I swear I won't hurt you guys!"

The two girls ran up the stairs to greet the new member of their party. The fear in his eyes appeared to be assuaged somewhat as he noticed the other two were far less intimidating in stature (and amount of weaponry on their person).

"Are you two working with that person?" The man asked, his voiced wavering in fear.

"Yeah..." Komaru responded as she turned to see the interloper staring at them blankly from the top of the staircase. "I mean, I'm pretty sure she's on our side."

"Uh, 'she'?" The man stared at her in confusion before deciding the topic wasn't worth dwelling on. "At any rate, what are your names? Mine's Taichi Fujisaki."

"Why do you need to kno-"

"I'm Komaru Naegi, and that's Touko Fukawa. Nice to meet you!" Komaru responds, deliberately cutting off her partner's biting remarks.

"Touko Fukawa? _The_ Touko Fukawa!?" Taichi inquires, his enthusiasm palpable despite the exhaustion coming off of him. "My wife loves your books!" He chuckles as a melancholy smile forms on his face. "Never thought I'd say this, but I wish she were here. She'd have loved to meet you."

"Hehe, your wife likes romance novels? You b-better keep-"

Just as Komaru had gotten settled into a rhythm of interrupting the author's bitter comments, the interloper usurped her role. "What is this?" She asked Taichi as she motioned with the barrel of her rifle towards the laptop he had been fixated upon before the girls interrupted him.

"Oh, the laptop? I came here to find a computer like this in the hopes of using to get rid of this wristb-"

Once again, the interloper moved at a seemingly inhuman pace to investigate the bizarre accessory on her newfound comrade's arm. His meager cries of pain did nothing to avert her gaze. She looked to his face after a brief moment of contemplation, then let him go.

"I should have listened to **him** ," She said as she returned to her neutral stance with her rifle across her chest. "Everything goes back to **her** in the end, doesn't it?" She asked no one in particular.

"H-Hey, say something! Why did you do that?" He asked with what little indignation he had left in him as he rubbed his arm in pain.

"Continue your story." The interloper ordered, her tone devoid of sympathy. The look of apprehension on Taichi's face made it clear that her stunt had shattered what little little trust she had managed to build up.

Sensing that this conversation was going to get a lot worse before it got any better, Komaru attempted to take over. "Y-Y'know, we came her for something too!" She proclaimed with forced enthusiasm.

Said forced enthusiasm quickly faded once Komaru actually tried to explain their purpose for coming to Towa Tower. "So uhh... we're trying to call future foundation, and we need to get to the top of the tower..." With each word, Komaru became more and more certain that she would die here of embarrassment before any of the monokumas had their chance to rend her flesh. "Cause of... uh, there's these raspberries..."

"Wow, you suck at this." Touko's unneeded insult cut through her muddled thoughts.

"Oh, you're talking about the jamming signal, right?" Taichi exclaimed as he bumped his fist into his open palm. "If you need to get to the top of the tower, I can help with that!" His expression became rather somber as he recalled the reason for his interjection. "I was taught a thing or two about the security systems this place uses by another survivor I met before... well..."

"You can just say he died." Touko urges him on. "N-Not like it's a rare thing to see dead bodies around here." Despite the remark containing Touko's signature level of malice, her voice was rather soft and reserved ( _I never realized how uncomfortable blood and guts made her..._ ).

Komaru's sympathetic glances were the only thing keeping Taichi from running away at this point. "Anyways," Taichi continued. "If you're just trying to get to the top, I can help with that."

"Then let's go." The interloper ordered as she began her descent down the stairs to where they had first come from. Taichi hesitated, earning him the ire of the mysterious third girl. She stopped in her tracks and turned to address him. "Move." Her voice still maintained its lack of emotion yet was much more forceful this time.

"Oh n-no you don't!" Touko shouted, her spirit having return to her with the change of subject. "Being all broody and rude while secretly having a heart of gold is, like, my thing!" She started running to catch up with the interloper so she could further berate her for "Stealing her shtick".

Komaru couldn't help but wonder what gave her partner the impression that either of them had any gold in their hearts whatsoever.

If the man still had reservations regarding his newfound companions, he did not voice them as he gathered his laptop. He turned to the Komaru with uncertainty in his eyes, and the girl shot him a smile completely devoid of any sort of positive emotion.

"You get used to it."

* * *

The junk monokuma let out a mechanical gurgling noise as it lunged at the interloper, its various misshapen limbs swinging in every direction. The interloper dodged as a shot of break from Komarus hacking gun landed directly in its red eye, cutting off its crude imitations of animal shrieks and causing it to go limp. Before Komaru could take aim at the next target, the interloper fired her rifle at something a few feet above the average girl, causing her to simply stare upwards in confusion. By the time the interloper had pulled her out of harm's way, she only vaguely registered the corpse ( _Is that the right word for that thing that I almost let kill me? Husk? Scrap? Remains?_ ) of the wall-crawling junk monokuma that was about to crush her.

What the interloper lacked in conversational skills, she certainly made up for in combat prowess.

A bullet from her sidearm found its way into a bomb monokuma, causing it to destroy the monokumas that had foolishly grouped around it. After a brief moment of both the interloper and Komaru staying silent to listen for any stragglers from their firefight, the former lowered her weapon but remained where she stood while the latter breathed a sigh of relief and walked back up to the doors to the elevator. She waved at Taichi as she walked up and he quickly nodded at her in acknowledgement before returning to typing away at his laptop to try and open the elevator doors.

"H-How much longer?" Touko inquired as she jammed her pointer fingers together as a nervous habit. She was even more skittish than usual on account of her stun gun having malfunctioned.

"I almost have it open, so it should be on its way down soon." He replied without looking up from his computer.

"Is that really how hacking works? You sound like you're in some 2-bit action film." She said as her hands began to fiddle with the rim of her skirt instead, seemingly unaware of how loud the sound of her other personality's scissors clinking together was.

"Uhh, Toki, isn't this thing your 'Master' gave me called a hacking gun? That sounds pretty anime to me..." Komaru explained to her partner, already nervous about whatever tirade she would go on in response.

"Hey!" Touko's enthusiasm flared up at the mention of her beloved master Byakuya. "Don't you dare go comparing the genius works of Master to your manga garbage!"

"The manga I read is _not_ garbage!"

"I got it, you guys!" Taichi shouted, oblivious to the heated battle of the minds that would have taken place had he not interrupted the conversation about manga.

The lights on top of the entrance to the elevator lit up as he pressed one final key on the computer. "Now all we have to do is ride it all the way to the top, right?" Komaru asked as she breathed a sigh of relief.

"Right." The man answered her question with newfound determination in his eyes. "Before we go any further, I really want to thank you guys for getting me to finally see hope."

"Get back from the door." The interloper heeded them.

Komaru obeyed, yet the other two didn't move as Taichi continued to talk.

"I'm sure once we contact future foundation, they'll come right away! We'll finally be saved!"

Taichi's optimism knew no bounds at this point.

"Um, guys? Did you not hear her?" Komaru interjects, her voice filled with fear at whatever could have the interloper worked up.

The speakers above the doors made dinging noises for each level the elevator descended, and the light indicated it was currently on the fourth floor.

"We should even be able to see our families again!"

The elevator reached the third floor.

The interloper moves toward the two who didn't listen.

Touko began to scurry away.

The light for the second floor came on.

"Get out of the way!" Komaru shouted, finally getting Taichi's attention.

The speaker let out a melodic chime to signal the arrival of the elevator.

The interloper grabbed the wayward man's arm and tried to pull him back.

The doors opened, and three monokuma drones on all fours charged out. One of them sank the claws of its forelegs directly into Taichi's throat, and the other only managed to graze the interloper on the arm. The menacing aura they seemed to exude was only enhanced by Taichi's blood having splattered all over them. The unfortunate man didn't even have the chance to instinctively cover the wound on his throat before the beast that had inflicted it upon him decided to finish him off. A single bite from its massive jaws ripped his head clean from his shoulders, further caking its mechanical form in viscera. Touko gasped and passed out at the gristly sight before her.

Komaru didn't even have time to register the scene before another beast charged Komaru. The interloper once again came to Komaru's aid, though this time it was all she could do to stand in front of the girl as the beast charged. The beast sunk its teeth into the interloper’s arm after she had raised in self-defense, and Komaru turned away out of fear and assumed the worst had happened.

Something flew past her head.

Her fears were extinguished once she realized that the object that flew past her was a pair of scissors, which had embedded itself directly into the red eye of the assaulting beast monokuma.

"Dun dadada dun! The Cinderella of slaying is here!" Touko's other personality proclaimed as she posed dramatically with her signature weapons. The two remaining beasts slowly turned to assess the new threat. Komaru vaguely heard the interloper mutter an expletive under her breath while rubbing her arm ( _Why do I smell smoke? Is something burning?_ ) and staring at the deceased form of Taichi. Syo wasted no time engaging one of the beasts in combat, her scissors clashing with its claws at lighting speeds. Just as Komaru began to ponder why switching personalities would give the girl such incredible physical capabilities, she noticed that the interloper was still fixated on the corpse of Taichi.

She had grabbed something out of the dead man's pocket and was fixated upon it. Unfortunately, her mysterious brooding (Which Komaru would have otherwise said was very cool looking) was preventing her from noticing the fact that the beast which Syo had not gotten around to engaging was slowly yet surely creeping up on her.

Komaru shouted for interloper's attention, but to no avail. She sat there motionlessly while tightly gripping whatever it was she'd taken from Taichi. She made her way towards the woman, and the beast increased its pace in response. She readied knockback on the hacking gun and prayed that incoming threat would snap the interloper out of her trance. The interloper stuffed whatever it was she'd taken from Taichi into a pocket on her vest. The beast leapt into the air, giving Komaru no choice but to fire upon both it and the interloper at once.

The beast went flying back inelegantly, slamming against a pillar neat the door to the elevator. While the interloper had also been thrown into the air, her landing had been much more graceful. Now pulled out of whatever it was that had so thoroughly distracted her, she picked up her rifle from the ground and fired continuously into the beast's exposed belly until it went limp. The bisected shell of the last beast flew past Komaru, both halves landing neatly around the one that the interloper had destroyed.

Clearly, Genocider Syo had held her own.

"Sorry I'm late, darling~!" Exclaimed Syo as she twirled her weapons on her fingers. "Miss Morose is so clumsy with that precious stun gun of hers..." Her expression soured as she reflected on her other half, then lit up again as her gaze fell upon the interloper. "Oh my my, what's this? Did you make a new friend while I was gone?" The interloper's stance became rigid as Syo approached her. "Wow, that's a hell of a get up!" She proclaimed as she let out a shrill laugh that seemed to go on forever. After calming down, she finally continued. "Seriously, what's with the creepy looking mask?"

" _Mask? She's not wearing a mask..._ " Komaru thought to herself. She didn't dare say it out loud though, lest she attract the attention of these two titanic figures. The interloper ignored Syo and walked towards the now empty elevator. Komaru followed, not wishing to be left alone.

"Oh, wait a minute!" She gasped as a disconcertingly cutesy smile formed on her face. "Do you not want me to see what an adorable boy you are? Is that it?"

"Just stop." The interloper responded, her emotionless facade beginning to crack from annoyance.

"Aw phooey, that's totally a girl's voice." Syo began to sulk, but suddenly her facial expression became more serious than normal. "Your voice sounds kinda familiar though. Didn't we - achoo!" And just like that, the author was returned to them.

"H-Huh? Is the fighting over? Where's that Taichi guy?" Touko asked as the elevator doors closed.

"Gone." Said the interloper as she balled her fists. "Just like the rest of **them**..."

She pulled Taichi's possession out of her pocket and resumed staring at it. Komaru worked her way against the wall the interloper was leaning on. Komaru couldn't help but be curious as to what on earth could have the interloper so mesmerized as to blank out in the middle of a fight like that.

"W-What's got you two so fascinated?" Asked Touko as she scooted in closer to peak at the item alongside Komaru.

It was a picture. It depicted Taichi smiling in front of the entrance to Hope's Peak Academy. He was embracing a small young girl with tears in her eyes and a bright, shining smile on her face. "I guess this is that family he was talking about." Komaru remarked with sorrow in her voice. "Is that his daughter? She looks great in this photo!"

"That's a boy." The interloper corrected her.

" _Wait, what!?_ "

"How'd you know that?" Komaru asked the interloper as the mysterious girl's face turned red.

"Yeah," Touko continued from Komaru's train of thought with even more toxicity in her voice than normal. "How did you know chihiro was a boy?"

"Toki, you know him?"

"Y-Yeah, but it's a long story and that doesn't matter right now." Touko stared down the interloper with the eyes of a cornered animal that had finally been forced in to fight. "What matters is that my classmates and I were the only ones that knew about that!" She paused and bit her nails while collecting her thoughts. "Well that, and those despair weirdos who help Junko Enoshima gather those secrets."

" _Junko Enoshima? That fashion model?_ " The question raced through Komaru's mind as she received too much information at once to actually process anything.

Touko continued with her own train of thought. "Wait a minute..." The vitriol in her voice had turned into outright hostility at this point. "You're the reason this is happening, aren't you?"

"Touko, what-"

"That's why you kept saying you're here to 'atone' or w-whatever! Well how do we know you're not gonna turn on us!?"

"Touko stop!"

The elevator screeched to a halt and the lights shut off. Komaru panicked almost immediately.

"Oh no, I've seen this in movies before! This is the part where we all die!"

"Ugh, this is what happens when you watch that garbage." Touko's ability to calm herself enough to voice her distaste for Komaru's choice in media consumption was truly a sight to see.

"Seriously, this happens all the time! Any second now the cable that holds the elevator up is gonna snap and we're gonna fall to our deaths!" At this point, Komaru was rather understandably in tears.

"Elevators don't get held up by a single cable, idiot!" Touko reassured her in a tone that was just about the opposite of reassuring.

"You won't die here, I'm sure of it." The interloper stated, as though it were easy to see.

"And what makes you so sure of that?" Komaru asked while she debated whether or not she could continue trusting this woman.

She began to walk towards the doors to the elevator as she spoke. "If these kids, these _warriors of hope_ , are anything like **her** ," she dug her hands into a small opening that had been made in the door. "They'll want to make a display of your death."

The bite marks on the interloper's arm lit up with a fiery glow as she braced herself to push the elevator open. She pushed her hands outwards to open the doors and Komaru's ears were filled with the screeching sound of metal grinding against metal. However, the deafening shriek of steel being pushed against the way it was designed to push was secondary to the sight that Komaru bore witness to. The otherwise pitch-black elevator had suddenly become a swirling sea of red, orange, and yellow. The dull light that had begun to emerge from the wound the interloper sustained while fighting the beast monokumas had turned into a raging inferno that reached the ceiling of the elevator. Once the door had finally been opened wide enough for the girls to fit through, the interloper simply motioned for them to come with her as she drew her rifle. The way she treated the event, no outside observer would have guessed that she had apparently channeled the literal fires of hell itself through her veins.

Komaru knew better than to expect answers to her questions at this point.

* * *

The serenity of the featureless hallway they'd been walking through quickly gave way to a cacophony of children's laughter and screams of excitement. While the other two girls had originally been keeping their distance from the interloper out of fear that she would once again spew fire out of her body, they came close to her out of some instinctual assumption that they would be safer when closer to her. The interloper scanned the crowd and arena for potential threats until her eyes fell on the masked child standing at the front end of a stage on the opposite side of the arena. The child's ill will could be felt from the other side of the room as the noise from the crowd died down so he could speak.

"Um, hey... Why'd you guys run here?" Asked Jataro as put one of his concealed hands to his chin. "Did you think you could escape me if you went super high up?" He giggled at his own words before continuing. "But the farther you run, the closer you - wait, there was just supposed to be two daemons here!" Though Jataro's mask hid most of his expression, it was plain to see that he was confused by the presence of the interloper.

No longer interested in delivering some grandiose, and no doubt eccentric, speech about their impending doom, Jataro simply began counting on his fingers ( _Can he actually do that through those sleeves or is he just screwing with us?_ ) while mumbling to himself. Eventually, he began to speak loud enough for the girls to hear. Upon hearing his words and realizing that, given they were not noticeably directed at any of them, listened intently with the hopes of gaining some new insight.

"And then Taichix makes three, but we made a lovely little diorama out of his face. So..." His gaze fell upon the interloper once again. "Really, who are you? None of the daemons I know about have all those scary guns."

The contempt in the interloper's voice was almost tangible. "Doesn't matter. I'm here to stop you."

"And why do you wear that scary looking mask?" Jataro didn't seem to be listening to anything she said. A grin dripping with malice formed on his face as he continued. "Could it be... You're the same as me?"

"Okay, seriously, can I call a time out for just a second?!" Komaru shouted, hoping she could finally find out what was the deal with this mask the interloper seemed to be wearing.

"Stop it!" The whole room froze at the interloper's outburst. Komaru had never heard the girl's voice in anything other than tones of neutrality or minor annoyance, so to see her explode with fury in such a manner had truly shaken her. That, and the fact that her wound had begun to glow again. "I'm nothing like you..." Her voice was already losing its fury, yet she continued. "I'm not some merciless killer obsessed with **despair**! I never was..." Her grip on her rifle tightened as Komaru watched her strain to hold back tears.

" **Despair**?" Jataro repeated the word like he'd never heard it before. "What do you mean?" His voice trailed off slightly before he continued. "When I was still in school, and the teachers would have me talk to special daemons in those big rooms with pretty chairs they would tell me about this word called 'projecting'. Is that what this is?" His laughter and condescending smirk seemed to put the interloper in a downward spiral of emotions. "I just wanted to know if you wear that mask for the same reason I do." The boy continued. "Cause, y'know, you're ugly and gross! Am I right?"

No response from the interloper.

"Yeah that's totally it!" His eyes were shining like stars at the opportunity to bring someone down to his level. "I bet your eyes are all gray and bloody and your ears are hanging on to your head by rotting flesh and your gums are all dry and rotten and filled with pus and your t-"

"Don't listen to him!" Now it was Komaru's turn to dramatically interject.

She embraced the interloper tightly and, though the interloper still didn't seem willing to let herself cry, she reciprocated the gesture by wrapping her hands around Komaru. "I don't know what it is you have to atone for, but you clearly don't deserve this!" She pulled her head up to look the interloper in the eyes. Her expression was neutral, though Komaru knew better than to assume she wasn't feeling anything. "You're obviously a wonderful, caring person. I can see that in your desire to save everyone!"

Hearing those words caused the interloper to smile at her. The soft expression combined with the warm look in her eyes was a far cry from the ruthless slayer she'd been up to this point. " **He** was right..." She shifted her gaze slightly downward to avoid eye contact. "I really do deserve better than **her**."

"Wait a minute, I know where I've heard your voice before!" Jataro exclaimed, pulling Komaru out of her most serene moment since she was first dropped into Towa city. "It's like, when you have a really weird dream over and over again, and you start to see stuff from that dream in real life! That's why I don't like lemons, cause they remind me of a bad dream I had about my mom."

"J-Just get to the point, you damn brat." Touko's bitter attitude was, for once, quite the relief.

"Uhh, okay! Isn't the scary girl with the mask that girl that followed **Big Sis Junko** everywhere?"

"J-Junko?! Like, J-Junko Enoshima?! That Junko!?" Touko brought to her hands to her chest in surprise.

If Komaru could have one question answered, it would be why everyone keeps talking about that fashion model.

Jataro simply continued his monologue. "Yeah, that's it! She always trailed behind big sis cause she said big sis told her she was ugly and smelly. I knew you were the same as me with the mask!" Despite only vaguely understanding the weight of these accusations, Komaru couldn't help but turn to the interloper and expect a response.

The interloper's silence shook Komaru to her very core.

"Well!? You get accused of helping the Ultimate Despair, and you won't even defend yourself?!"

" _Seriously, what did Junko do?_ " Was just about the only coherent thought Komaru could string together, even if she couldn't manage to vocalize it.

"Uhh, I kinda hafta go to the bathroom, can you guys let me kill you already?" Jataro's crude remark cut through the air like a putrid blade as the girls turned their gaze to him. "Aww, did I ruin your touching moment?" He asked, obviously feigned remorse all over his face. "Did me talking about going to the potty make you angry?" He leaned in closer to highlight the fact that his elevated position allowed him to look down upon the girls. "Do you hate me yet?"

Jataro didn't wait for a response.

He rummaged through his backpack briefly before pulling out a box-shaped metal object with various buttons and joysticks on it. He pressed a small red button on the bottom of the controller, and it lit up the red eye on the center of the controller. A moment later, Jataro's robot that he controlled as a member of the _warriors of hope_ crashed through the window of the arena and landed in front of the stage. It turned to face the girls and placed the palms of its mechanical hands together in a pose that Komaru assumed Jataro thought was cool.

Whatever insults and ramblings the masked child spewed at them were drowned out by the roar of the fighting robot's jet engines it used to stay afloat. As grateful as Komaru was that she was no longer forced to suffer his incessant monologues, this had the unfortunate side effect of not being able to hear him announce each attack he was about to perform. She saw what appeared to be a twin set of missiles fire out of launchers on its back before her vision became a blur as she realized the interloper had thrown her across the room. She shook her head to collect her thoughts and smiled as she realized she'd landed right at the feet of her unwashed companion.

"Hey, uh... Toki..." The meekness of Komaru's words hardly synced up with how loud her voice had to be to overcome the din of gunfire and explosions that had become the fight between the interloper and Jataro. "Now would be a really good time to sneeze!"

"W-What, you think I can just do that on command?" She didn't even have the focus to scold Komaru for using that nickname she detested.

"Wait a minute, you said you also shift personalities if you get knocked out, right?"

"Yeah, but why-"

"Sorry about this!"

Touko didn't manage to let out a single word in response to the apology before Komaru thrust her hand into the author's face, forcing the back of her head into the arena wall and knocking her out cold.

She got up moments later, her eyes now a bright scarlet and filled with a potent mix blood lust and good old-fashioned lust.

"Sorry I took so long, love! Miss Morose breaking that stupid stun gun is really getting on my nerves!" Syo remarked as she pulled out her signature blades from under her clothes. She turned to see the battle unfolding before her, and a look of frustration grew on her face. "Seriously, is there not _one_ cute guy in this whole city? Just these stupid robots over and over again!"

Komaru didn't think to respond to the serial killer's remark. She'd been distracted by the fight unfolding before them and was debating whether or not she could help the interloper or if she'd just be getting in the way.

The interloper's gunshots bounced off the exterior of the robot, leaving no discernible damage. Its array of explosives were just as effective however, as the interloper was able to evade its attacks with ease. The robot moved at a blinding speed, but it never came close to hitting the interloper. It seemed that, while the robot could perform actions at a fast enough rate, Jataro himself was still bound by his average reflexes.

"Let's see how he likes going toe-to-toe with _two_ pretty girls!" Syo exclaimed and then turned to Komaru with a smug grin on her face. "And whatever the deal with that gun-nut is." Syo didn't wait for her partner to respond before leaping into action, slicing her way through the monokuma bots that leapt into the fray.

Realizing that was her cue to join the fray, she steeled her will and readied her hacking gun. She took aim at the elaborate robot with break, but the shots simply fizzled away upon landing on the chassis. It fired two spherical explosives out of its back and Komaru turned down to look at her gun so she could switch to knockback but she couldn't turn the dial fast enough and she was worried about what would happen if she-

Her vision once again became a blur as she was pushed to the side by the interloper causing her to be caught in the blast of the explosives instead of Komaru. Fire and smoke and death filled all of Komaru's senses as she struggled to straighten her vision and ignore the ringing in her ears. Her near death experience got the attention of Syo, who paused while holding the mangled corpse of a shield monokuma to stare at her. Komaru's eyes, however, were turned to the crater that had been where the interloper and the bomb were.

Not because the interloper had died.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

The interloper had begun to stand up. Her face was cover in dust and ash, and she had pieces of shrapnel buried in her cheeks. Such damage was of little concern compared to the holes covering her torso, most of which were large enough to see through. A bright orange liquid that sizzled as it hit the ground poured from her wounds as she turned to face the robot. Jataro's aloof facade had been shattered beyond repair as he watched this daemon literally embody the title the warriors of hope had given her kind.

Sweat fell from Komaru's forehead, both out of fear and the excess temperature, as the interloper approached her.

"When you see **Makoto** ," Her voice was ragged and filled with grief. "Give these to him." She tore a set of dog tags from her neck. "And tell him I still love him."

She opened Komaru's palm to place them in her hand, then turned and walked away once the girl finally took hold of them. The interloper drew her knife, and the magma pouring from her veins turned into a raging inferno that completely obscured her figure. She charged toward Jataro's robot faster than the masked child could react and pinned it to the ground. The flames grew larger and hotter with every passing second as the air grew unbearably hot and Komaru could no longer make out what was happening between the interloper and the robot. The rushing sounds of the growing inferno finally transitioned into the world shattering sound of an explosion that blew the two girls off of their already unsteady feet.

All that was left of the sage robot was a pile of hardening molten slag, and the charred corpse of the interloper on top of it. The pair watched in awe as the body rapidly dissolved into ashes before their very eyes.

Komaru paid no heed to the Jataro's fate. She didn't see his eyes fill with dread as the crowd of children turned to him with their menacing artificial eyes. She never saw what his beautiful face looked like as his mask came off when the crowd tore him to shreds as punishment for failing at the game. She didn't even notice that his mask had fallen gently at her feet.

In that moment, her entire being was focused on the dog tags the interloper had given her and wondering just who **Mukuro Ikusaba** was.

**Author's Note:**

> And with that my first ever fanfic is done :D Tell me what u guys think!


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